My Mother’s Secret

 

I found my mother’s secret

tucked away in a

drawer beneath some bras,

after she had gone away,

inside five boxes

of feminine pads.

Pills of all descriptions

without prescriptions,

such a canny mind.

What I first thought as gross forethought,

in fact was brilliant,

the elegance of her secrecy.

All these years of mindful outlet

with numbness as the goal met.

She, closeting her pain,

keeping the pretense of

a younger woman's necessity

when in fact, no younger woman could harbor

so many years of ache.

If Only

As Tantalus pleaded,

All only ever out of reach,

So shall I,

For the alchemy of properly positioned syllables,

The perfect mathematical equation of sounds

Whispered out from a broken heart,

That allows me to have

That one last minute again

Before you take your last breath.

As Garbo bid,

From well lit corners of her stage,

So shall I

To get that perfect retake,

The best possible script written,

Delivered in most dramatic fashion

To re-create the final scene,

To assuage my grief

At the stunning irreversibility

Of your death.